In a recent interview for an Albanian TV station, US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher casually argued that Macedonia “is not a country” and should be divided up between Kosovo, Albania, and Bulgaria.

Coming from the chair of the US House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats, this is more than a vulgar display of condescending colonialism, it is a convenient instrument for shifting the focus onto the familiar stereotype of the Balkans as the crucible for ethnic intolerance and violence, obscuring the consequences of neoliberal hegemony in the region. Even more disconcerting than the fact that the statement is made by a congressman who was shortlisted for Trump’s secretary of state, is the fact that it comes at a time when Macedonia finds itself at the peak of the greatest crisis in its otherwise turbulent twenty-five years of existence.

December’s fourth snap elections in a row failed to break a two-year political deadlock. Two months on, a government is yet to be formed. The ruling VMRO-DPMNE (Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity) and the main opposition party SDSM (Social Democratic Union of Macedonia) came close to a tie, winning fifty-one to forty-nine seats respectively, while sixty-one are needed to form a government.